“But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. We have to all, in the western world, think about this.

You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa… So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out.”

But Emmerich acolytes need not fear that the film-maker is pulling his punches on 2012… – in order to highlight his opposition to organised religion, the director decided to use CGI to destroy the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro instead.

For good measure, he also blew up the Sistine chapel and St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, plus, on a secular note, the White House (again).

Seems his opposition isn’t actually to organised religions generally, but just to the one that most guarantees his safety and freedom to speak.

Coward. Vandal. And the Guardian journalist who wrote that last paragraph is little better.